The first section is the interviewer speaking about the publication and that this is the first time in 13 years that MM has appeared in it. She then goes on to say that most of the publication's current readers are likely unaware of who exactly MM is and the fact that they have a 25th anniversary planned.
"But even so, much like Kiryuuin Shou (Golden Bomber) who graces the cover of this edition, MM is surely a band that maintains a fervant following to this day. Do people still confess their love of MM to you and say things like, 'I looked up to MM' ?"

Mana-Sama: Yes, they do.

"I'm sure that is something that makes you happy"

Mana-Sama: To be honest, yes it does. Those roadies who had always stuck close to us and will be performing at Deep Sanctuary 6, the likes of Shuuji (Cali Gari/ Goatbed), Kamijo (Versailles) and Hitomi (ex-Moran, UmiYuri), were the same. They were touched by MM and wanted to become roadies. Those kinds were always at hand.

"In fact, I am also one of the people who have been impacted by MM. Back in the day, I was in the editorial department and would oversee MM appearences in music journals. I first saw MM in the flesh at the Hokkaidou and Shibuya 'Last Indies Live" shows, it left such an impact on me that I could not help but dance and jump for joy. lol"

Mana-sama: Around the time we formed, Visual Kei as a genre was just beginning to take shape. Even so, we were quite distinctive (from other acts at the time) and were seen as heresy (not fitting in).

"But, there were such groups as Kome Kome Club ( soul~funk band from 80s) and Seikima 2 (80s heavy metal band of 'demons') that had thoroughly different visual and performance aspects even before MM (or V kei as a whole. Not 100% sure which she is implying)."

Mana-Sama: Well, they are of an entirely separate genre to MM.

"True. Kome Kome and Seikima tended to focus their performances on simply playing the instruments passionately. To have a gituarist not playing his instrument but dancing instead, was probably unheard of lol. MM was formed with yourself and K(that character- sorry guys Cantavanda might scold me)zi at the core, what kind of concept did you guys build the band on in its inception?"

Mana-Sama: We had a foundation in a Visual Kei scene that was still establishing itself to some degree and we said, "We want to do something new that has never been done before". That is where our twin guitar style came in...(end of page)

Yay ^^

Not sure when I'll get to "400", I'll see if I can have a crack at it tomorrow.

Probably translating the entire thing is pretty tedious, I'll give it a start from post 43 then, maybe that will prompt more translations by parts afterwards.

--What happened between Gackt and the 4 members here?
Mana - Having done with the merveilles concept, a member meeting is held to decide on what's up next. A certain article mentioned of how he said "let's continue without taking a break", but we've never heard that, nor did we say "we want to rest". In reality, we needed time to think and so we decided to set aside a perod of time to replenish our strength after some discussions.
During these type of conversations, differences in opinions occur between him and the other 4 members, and he didn't come to the meetings anymore...

--Is that just a conflict concerning only the concept?
Mana - No, it's about the direction we are heading towards and how we are to become as humans.

--It's not about being musicans or artists?
Mana - Malice Mizer is a 5 person group, it's a form created by 5 members. The thing is, even if one has got a brillant artist personality, it's difficult to create something as a cooperative group bound by fate with just that personality alone.

The last sentences of post 42(the poster comments on how she/he thinks about the interview) troubles me, as it was written as “マリス側のコメントでなくてごめんなさい。マリスコメントはDMとヴィシャス？だったはずですね”( “Sorry for them not being comments directly from the Malice side, I think comments by Malice are from DM and Vicious? That’s all”). I don’t know what’s DM or Vicious (sorry for lacking knowledge), therefore any explanation on that would be helpful.

I’ll still continue from where I left off (post 43 is the start of the interview) since....I've already done it.

44:

--So, Malice Mizer didn’t expand from a group of very good friends?
kozi- Right from the start, we didn’t gather together because we have close links with one another, but to come all the way here isn’t considered a coincidence either. Conflicts happen among other members as well, and they didn’t pose much of a big problem, after all, it’s just human to do that. Up till now, there have been disagreements, but it’s only after the merveilles concept has been created that those happened a lot.
Yu~ki-This happens with all bands, but when people gather together to come up with something, don’t we need to be polite in our discussions. We never avoided that and despite collisions here and there, we came up with wonderful productions. We never overlooked anyone, and made discussions right from the beginning, not concealing any conflicting views, yet without realizing when, there were no conversations before anything concerning music. It’s not specifically about anyone. And we thought there will be some words of trust as in the past such as “how about this sound?”.

45:

Mana- After Malice Mizer’s major debut started, Gackt changed as if making a sudden turn, for both good and bad. Perhaps humans will change when the situation changes, but I think the basic points won’t.
Yu~ki- Our office was not set up only yesterday or today, it’s the most obvious thing. Indeed, the record company is very understanding to us, and great productions were created without compromising. We did all that without having any confrontations with the office nor the record company. But in a certain article, what he said of something like “the confrontation with the office”, how such words came about, it’s strange, but I guess that can’t be helped.
Kami- Meetings after meetings, we will stop around and catch up from there, but he’s the only one who will leave. Things such as trust began to drop. He said “I love Malice Mizer”, but how is it that he would take such an action, it’s unbelievable.
Mana- Perhaps that’s what he wanted to do, for his personality as an artist has been greatly recognized. When he’s performing the merveilles concept as an artist on stage, complicated personal emotions are completely left out.
Kami- Because there’s trust in the music.
Mana-However, this is the limit. Most parts of the concepts that has been created until merveilles are done in the past. To create new things, a trusting relationship is very important. Countless meetings have brought up the fact that that is lacking.

46:
--To say it in a substantial way?
Mana-That’s people for you.
Mana-From now on, I think there’s nothing to work on together anymore.
Yu~ki-I think from now on, the band will need strong bonds to stand to the top and represents many ideas and meanings. Without a bond that can enable communication through eye contact during lives, nothing good will come out of it, neither can we reach the top. Though we always think that way until now, but still we managed to do it pretentiously.
The Director said “even as the songs are good, but somewhere I feel your hearts aren’t as one.”, and I feel the same way after watching from the back of the stage with an open mind. Not wanting to go on putting on such pretense and that emotion increased with the experiences from the meetings, yet it has come to a point of no return, the gap cannot be mended anymore. That why, the main problem is our relationship with him, not the office and us against him. It’s tough that many who wrote fan letters thought that way.
Mana-I’ve had it rougher.

47:
Mana-After a certain article came out, a letter came viciously, giving me a lecture. “As the leader, please behave more like an adult” and so on. I’d like to express what really happened sooner, but in this world, there is truth that appears as if it didn’t exist. We are sorry to the fans of the Malice Mizer with these 5 members, but we hope you can understand. This is the result of moving forward and breaking through without worrying too much, I regret it so badly **
Yu~ki- We have troubled fans and those in the industry who helped us, we are really sorry, regretful.
--Returning back to topic, are there any discussions regarding Gackt leaving the band?
Mana-He disappeared around November last year, despite having work to do, there’s lots on the schedule, but we don’t know where to contact him, and it remained that way. But we continued waiting for him. But, it seems as if he came up a betrayal kind of manner…it’s sad and regrettable.
kozi-Not really, gentlemanly in those meetings, then all of sudden, he didn’t come anymore.
Mana-That’s why, please do not believe things like we drove him out etc.

48:
--What will happen to Malice Mizer from now on?
kozi- well, we are still in the situation whereby we haven’t really decided on when we’re going to announce our works, right?
Mana- Many things happened, we are now recovering and sorting our emotions. The only thing that we can say now is that we want to meet and bring in a new vocalist, and begin a new Malice Mizer.
Kozi-we are definitely not going to disband. We can’t continue like a normal band, given the situation now, and it’ll be so for a while to come. To decide on a vocalist requires much consideration, it’s not a simple “yes, let’s take this person, now let’s GO!”
Mana- That’s why, right now at this stage, we can only promise that we will not disband, Malice Mizer will continue. We will move forward.
kozi- Perhaps it’ll be a while before we can meet with our fans, but surely there are different encounter ways. We are not doing nothing now, we are exploring and experimenting around.

**死ぬほど悔しい, literally means feeling regret as much as death
As always, corrections are welcomed, I didn't double check it*tired* and if you want to/have already translate them, do post yours and we can compare any differences or specific points to take note of.

Lastly, I just want to say I translated everything I see there, I've no preference to either side and I really am pretty much clueless about the details of this issue(I only know maybe some arguments happen and he left, that's all) personally, I don't think I'll choose to trust everything of what one side says and so on.

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This. The RR interviewer was a fan of Malice Mizer back then and she said there was a lot going on at the time. I would guess that Gackt's announcement of going solo and press of him then overshadowed a lot. Mana said some of the music magazines did ask about their thoughts at that time.

Outside of Scape, pretty much everyone I talk with still believe Gackt's story as to why he left. Press has gone with that also. Mana said that the information (their side of things) did not get out at that time and that has continued to today. He mentioned Gackt's books and interviews and all.

(added in the first part of the interview which is important because it's where the members said Gackt stopped showing up for meetings, aka as he was not kicked out of Malice Mizer)

Thank you so much for these translations. I always hope there is some chance of a true reunion. . . It is nice to hear that there was plans with Gackt to actually come together again. It is definitely true that lots of young people here in Japan do not know MM as stated in the interview haha.

My favorite part:
"One of the stage sets was so large it would not all fit in Mana's room. He didn't think of finding a warehouse he could borrow space at, so he tried to hide the Parthanon pillars in his apartment parking."

My favorite part:
"One of the stage sets was so large it would not all fit in Mana's room. He didn't think of finding a warehouse he could borrow space at, so he tried to hide the Parthanon pillars in his apartment parking."

"Those were always there."

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Yeah the old stories about Malice Mizer are some of the best parts of the interview. I enjoyed when he tweeted some things in the past, like having to put on his stage outfit in the car or how either he or Közi only had a day to practice a song and had to do it from a cassette tape, but the speed of the tape was wrong so when they played the song, they were out of sync with each other.

It's sad he deleted a number of those tweets. I hope he has saved a lot of what he's written somewhere. I wish there was someone in Japan that would be able to put together a book with him, Közi and Yu~ki about Malice Mizer. I'd buy it.

He has mentioned the book. I'm trying to remember where. I thought it was the interview but might be in something else recently. That it was being worked on but then a while back (five years ago?) something happened so nothing since then. My impression is that K passing away changed a lot of things including wanting to work on the autobiography. Which is why it's good that Mana is becoming more active again and getting out to different places. Getting to see he still has a lot of support I hope is a positive thing for him. Because more than a book, having new music would be amazing.

Supposedly he put it on hold because he was looking for one specific person (unnamed) whose input was crucial to the book.

But among the cognoscenti, the theory is that the book's actually done except for needing editing, but there's only one Gothic Master/Editor Master up to the task and he's not available

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And then while I'm out running errands I remember where Mana talked about the book. At the Seattle Q & A. Which I wrote up back then.

"He was asked if he thought about releasing an autobiography. His response was that there was a plan five or six years ago but due to circumstances it did not happen then. That it would be great to do one day."

Well if he can keep dropping stories in interviews, on Twitter and in his blog (which would be a really good place for it) it's good. Even without a book.

It takes time, patience young Jedi. I really do think he is working on music. That was also mentioned in Seattle. In a definite way. " Any news about a new album? He will be entering the recording process soon after he returns to Japan." Having a little experience with recording and engineering, I can say Mana's music is not the typical rock band production. It's not going into a studio for a few days, having the band play and then someone mixes it, masters it and it's an album. Plus we don't know what else he is doing. He said he is going into the recording process...something he has not said previously.